


A Conclusion

by mummapaintstheblues



Category: Naruto
Genre: Domestic Bliss, F/M, Fluff, Happy endings all round, Kakashi - Freeform, Love, Romance, Sakura - Freeform, the fluffiest fluff you've ever fluffed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 08:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20561162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mummapaintstheblues/pseuds/mummapaintstheblues
Summary: Drabbles and snippets of domestic life and love with a baby on the way.These segments were intended to be included in my chaptered fic, An Experiment, but I could not fit them in. So here they shall lie in marital bliss with my OTP.The Announcement, The Struggles, The Arrival





	1. The Announcement

“I’m home…”

There was no need for Kakashi to actually say it out loud, she’d had to have heard him the instant the keys were in the door. But for some reason, Kakashi would feel at odds if the two words went unsaid. It was just one of those every day rituals that made their house a home, it's absence would be too hard to ignore, part of the greater myriad of things he loved about her. Like clockwork, he heard Sakura’s voice from the kitchen.

“Welcome home.”

Once upon a time, in his long forgotten youth, Kakashi might have found this kind of predictable homelife to be monotonous. But having someone to actually come home to everyday was a novelty that had never quite worn out. Perhaps he was just getting old. Now that Naruto was prepping to take over as Hokage he certainly felt his age creeping up on him. Trying to keep up with his younger wife at times also added to this feeling.

Sakura didn’t appear to greet him, but this wasn’t unusual, and judging by the time she was probably in the middle of cooking dinner. The last meeting of the day hadn’t dragged so badly, he was home in time for a hot meal for the first time this week. Sakura's hospital schedule was just as hectic at times, so it suited his own chaos perfectly. 

But today was the second Friday of the month. A rare moment where the planets and stars aligned perfectly so that they were both home together. And Friday meant one thing. Miso soup and broiled saury. 

Discarding his robes and gloves on the hangar first, he made way to join his wife in the kitchen. Kakashi was halfway there before he realized something was off. 

What he could smell was definitely _not _miso soup and broiled saury. 

This was radically _off _plan. The mingling aroma of frying seafood, pork and something sweet assaulted his sensitive nose even through the mask. Just what on earth was going on here? Kakashi’s mind sifted through the brief conversations he’d had with Sakura, the last two weeks being so busy for the both of them it was hardly more than the usual debrief on the days events, before they’d inevitably tumbled into bed together.

There was no way he’d missed an announcement that they would be having guests tonight. Unless this had been one of those damnable spur of the moment things. There were no other noises apart from Sakura’s cooking, and no other shoes at the door, which was encouraging.

She was standing at the stove top when he walked in, long hair pulled back loosely, apron tied at her waist. Briefly Sakura grinned in his direction while she turned and put the tray in her hands on the table.

Kakashi sidled up behind her, locking his tired arms around her, nuzzling into that intoxicating crook of her neck and breathing deeply. Now he was home.

“Long day?”

Sakura’s voice held no trace of tiredness, he wondered how long she’d been home for. Judging by the spread on the table it had to have been a while at least. She leaned back into his touch.

“Much better now. And you?”

“Likewise.”

She turned her head to peck a brief kiss on his masked lips. Kakashi held her gaze for a moment, just enjoying the upturn of her lips, the sparkle of cheekiness in her eye. She was definitely up to something, but she looked so heavenly he couldn’t help but fall hook, line and sinker into whatever trap this was.

“And can I ask if we’re feeding the entire village tonight hmm?”

Sakura laughed, turning in his arms and lacing hers around his neck.

“Of course not.”

Kakashi didn’t like being confused, about anything. It was not something he was accustomed to. Trust Sakura to find a way to do just that.

“So all of this,” he gestured briefly to the table that was completely laden with food, drinks and desserts, “this is just for the two of us?”

“Yup, just you and me. I figured you’d be hungry, and we should celebrate a little…”

Kakashi had been ignoring the rumbling of his stomach. Disentangling himself from Sakura as he spied her specialty fried rice balls, calling to him from across the table. He barely registered any of her words after _just you and me._ Before he was able to reach over she slapped his hand playfully. 

He didn’t need her to actually say anything. Rolling his eyes, once he’d turned away from her of course, Kakashi preemptively tucked his mask under his chin while he collected a plate from the kitchen.

“Did you say celebrate?”

He called out, closing the cupboard, returning to her side with two plates and glasses.

“Yes I did. Though I’m not sure if I should be eating all of this.”

Kakashi huffed in amusement, shaking his head just a little as he piled up his plate. Caught up in deciding what to sample first, he missed the smirk on Sakura's face. 

“I think if you're right. If you ate all of this you’d explode. It's really far too much for the two of us even.”

He continued to pile his plate, hearing the loud sigh that escaped Sakura.

“It's not that, it's just that pregnant women really shouldn't eat shellfish and sushi. I just wanted to make it special for tonight, we haven't eaten together in so long, but you're right it's too much…”

There was nothing unusual about her tone. Nothing to give away the wondrous piece of news she'd just delivered so nonchalantly. And still on autopilot Kakashi had not registered.

“It's a lovely thing that you wanted to make It special, don't get me wrong, but what were you thinking making all…..” 

_Pause._

Kakashi stopped, mind backtracking to the words he couldn’t quite believe had fallen from her lips. He felt his jaw dropping before the chopsticks in his hand did. While he watched the spreading grin on Sakura’s face, the plate he’d been piling up sat forgotten on the table.

“Did you say _pregnant?”_

The unfazed exterior she had crafted broke completely before his eyes, morphing into a glow of unrestrained joy. Nodding excitedly, Kakashi felt her contagious smile spreading to his own face.

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yes Kakashi, I’m pregnant.” 

In an instant he’d tugged her into his arms, beaming from ear to ear. An unbridled laugh burbling from his chest, his forehead resting against hers.

“Finally.”


	2. The Struggle

This was supposed to be the easy part. It was supposed to be beautiful. It was _supposed_ to be the happiest time of her life.

But for Sakura it was anything but. It had become a slow kind of agonizing torture. And just when she thought she was on the precipice of sweet relief, a new kind of annoyance would rear its ugly head to make her feel more miserable.

It had started with the morning sickness. Which was _supposed _to get better after a few weeks. It did not, even after seven months. It also did not contain itself to just the morning, which she felt was rude beyond belief.

The constant need for the bathroom had been the next. Something which, though completely normal, was not likely to go away anytime soon. It wouldn’t be so bad, but during the night it was a hell that had her up every hour. Which lead to the next thing, sleep. An impossibility at the present moment, to the point of madness, a permanent kind of tiredness that debilitated and enraged her at the same time.

Sakura sat with her feet up on the couch practically seething. 

Pregnancy was supposed to be a beautiful thing, yet here she was. Back aching, feet swollen, more emotional than she had been in her entire life. Her mother’s voice echoing in her ear about how wonderful she had felt while she was pregnant. ‘The best she’d ever felt’ even. 

This was the complete opposite. 

Because on top of all this, hormonal and completely justifiable, agony a darker element had taken hold. A kind of paranoia that festers in the minds of expectant mothers with too much medical knowledge and free time to worry.

Is the baby moving enough? Was that just a leg cramp or something more sinister? The habitual checking for blood whenever going to the bathroom. The fear, unabating and relentless, causing her to summon chakra and check the baby's heart rate more than she probably needed to. Each time she panicked silently before finding that steady rhythm...

“Sakura…”

Kakashi’s voice broke through her fog of self doubt and worry. She had almost forgotten that he was sitting beside her on their couch, the book that had been propped in his lap abandoned to the coffee table.

“Hmm?”

“You were spacing out, again.”

“Sorry.”

Sakura found herself hugging a cushion, her husband skooching over to put an arm around her.

“I wish you wouldn’t worry so much.”

“You know I can’t help it. It’s just…”

“Yeah, I know.”

It didn’t need to be said. They both felt it. After trying so hard and for so long for this baby to develop this far it was hard to believe that the happiness of it wouldn’t be snatched out from under them, just as it had before. Sakura leant into Kakashi, breathing in that calming and clean scent of his. Willing her body to relax, her arms releasing their death grip on the cushion, Sakura sunk into the couch.

It did not help that every time the baby moved, Kakashi was never close enough to feel it. So lately he had taken to being around her constantly when he could. This was annoying on another level at times, but right now it was just what she needed, he was calming her. And he so desperately wanted to feel that baby moving too, it was his own kind of paranoia that Sakura wished she could soothe.

The peace was interrupted by a sudden stretching and fluttering sensation. She looked down in time to see the cushion resting on her stomach jump up.

“Did you see that?”

Kakashi’s gaze had been fixed on her face in a kind of trance.

“See what?”

Before the cloud of doom could fully settle around her that he had missed it, _yet again, _the feeling returned tenfold. The cushion pushed entirely from her stomach and onto the floor.

“Okay, I definitely saw that.”

In an instant she snatched his hand, putting it to the spot that seemed to be baby’s arm adjusting itself, stretching her skin. But it was still again. 

Sakura felt heavy hearted that this kept happening to the point where Kakashi was almost resigned to not feeling his unborn child move. It made her feel infinitely more terrible, and she was pretty much rock bottom as it was. Her hand slipped from his, dropping to rest at her side on the couch. Kakashi’s remained on her stomach, his eyes watching that point.

And then it happened again.

Kakashi’s hand actually jolting up with the force of the kick of whatever limb the baby had decided to throw at him.

“Okay, I saw and felt that.”

Sakura breathed a sigh of contentment, watching the grin spread on his face, finally allowing herself to relax. Kakashi continued to talk to her and her stomach but the soft tone of his voice and the peace she finally felt overwhelmed her. 

She felt his lips brush her forehead before sleep embraced her.

At least until she had to go to the bathroom again. 


	3. The Arrival

_11:31pm._

That had been the exact hour, the precise minute, that the world had delivered to him the most precious of all gifts. Rendering all the hours and minutes preceding it an unimportant blur, even if that wasn’t the case at all. Because they had all lead him here, to this moment 

There had been no cry for them to hear, but at 11:31pm, they had heard something which Kakashi would never have considered beautiful before. But now it was the most miraculous of sounds to him.

It was a sneeze. 

A sneeze, and she was _finally here. _Followed by a flurry of sneezes. The cutest burbling and puffing to ever reach his ears. 

There was an earnest and tired exchange with Sakura, her eyes almost completely shut, but the contentment on her face was real. Kakashi leaned over to place a kiss on her brow, she was still unable to move, he could feel the relief falling over them both like a blanket. 

“Thank you.”

The whispered words were met with a soft sigh from Sakura. Surrounded by doctors, nurses and machinery he wasn’t even worried if she’d heard him properly. The world had formed a soundproof bubble around them for just that moment. 

From behind the curtain one of the doctors or surgeons appeared. Kakashi couldn’t have told you who or what exactly their job was, but they uttered a question that had only one answer.

“Would you like to see your daughter now?”

Sakura was still unable to move, the only sign of her eagerness in the widening of her eyes.

“Please.”

In an instant the tiny bundle was brought to them, surrounded by doctors, and placed on Sakura’s chest. The only part of her body she was able to see. Kakashi stared at the baby that was wrapped up, so only her face was showing. So close to her, he could see the slight point of her ears, like Sakura’s. He could see the white tuft of hair on her head. Her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping.

“Kakashi, look at her ears…”

Sakura’s words were tired and weak, but the excitement dripped through, that she had noticed this detail first as well. Kakashi exhaled in contentment. Unable to pull his eyes from her.

“She looks so peaceful…” he finally managed to get out. “I wish she was awake so we can finally meet properly.”

The anesthesiologist sitting directly behind Sakura’s head, who Kakashi had completely forgotten about in the moment, shifted and blocked the harsh lights that were shining down on them. He gave Kakashi a knowing smile, but it had only been for a fleeting second, Kakashi was unwilling to look away from her for too long.

It was just as well he did. With the light blocked now, the baby’s eyes very slowly opened.

All the while she remained silent. As if she were curiously studying her new world and all those in it. The wrinkle of her brow as it furrowed was the expression that caused a slight chuckle to escape him. 

“Hello Maika.”

Sakura’s voice wavered, straining to stay awake.

“What’s her name?”

Shizune shouted from over the curtain somewhere.

“Maika. Maika Hatake.”

Kakashi couldn’t quite believe the words falling from his mouth were his. That this precious and tiny person bore his name. 

“It’s a beautiful name.” 

One of the doctors said, far too closely to his ear, and it was now that he realized just how surrounded they were. This doctor in particular had never lifted her hand from beneath the tiny parcel of wonder. And Kakashi only now realized why in a sudden rush of panic that turned the blood in his body to ice.

“You see here how her nostrils are flaring like that?” The doctor spoke quickly, obviously well versed in relieving panic. “We call it flaring, and it means…”

“She’s working a little harder to breathe than she should need to.”

Sakura finished the sentence for her. Kakashi momentarily soothed by the tone of her voice, so matter of fact and without a trace of worry. 

What they next explained to him passed in another vague smudge of time. All that mattered was that _he _would staying with baby Maika while Sakura was in recovery for the next two hours. In an instant he felt a surging guilt that _he _would be spending these first moments with the beautiful bundle they had created, that Sakura would feel robbed of this. But Sakura simply nodded to him with a tired smile before her eyes drifted shut. 

Maika would be taken to the Specialty Care Baby Unit, her breathing checked, before she would be brought to Kakashi. He watched them take her away, cursing in his mind that he was jealous of all the doctors and nurses able to touch her, while he still had been unable to. Then he was ushered from the room, barely enough time for him to place a hand on Sakura’s cheek before they shoved a pair of green scrubs in his hands.

Kakashi couldn’t remember changing. He couldn’t remember how he made it to that little room. He couldn’t sit. He was itchy.

In the purest rush of happiness he’d felt since the day Sakura asked to be his wife, he suddenly realized that everything he loved most in the world was at least under this one roof together. That they would all be together soon enough.

So he waited. He paced. The happiness and excitement unable to stay still for very long while he waited for baby Maika.

Ten minutes. It had only been ten minutes. It felt like a lifetime.

And then she was wheeled in, a lone doctor pushing the cradle in with a smile, everything was fine. As Sakura knew it would be of course. This doctor might have spoken to Kakashi but he’d never heard it. Just found himself sitting in the rooms sole armchair and handed the softest and most treasured of all bundles.

The doctor left. 

Kakashi sat with Maika resting on his chest, her eyes now closed in peaceful sleep, soaking in the warmth of her father. She had been cleaned up, the white of her hair now poking strands in all directions. Her skin pure and soft as cotton wool. 

Kakashi had been quietly panicking, unbeknownst to Sakura, these last few weeks. Worried that his hands weren’t meant to handle something so precious, so wonderful as new life. But here she was, and she fitted in his hands so perfectly. Wriggling into them as if that was where she had always meant to be, comfortable even against the itchy scrubs.

He wished she would fit in his hands forever. Wished he could sit here forever. But time is a fickle thing when something so beautiful is in your hands. It drifted away like sand in the wind.

The sound of wheels and voices stirred him. A familiar flash of pink hair now lying on the gurney at the hospital door. _Had it been two hours already?_

Sakura looked sheepish, grinning, Kakashi wasn’t sure which of his girls was more beautiful in that moment. 

“Who’s the handsome surgeon holding my baby?”

Her voice was in a mock whisper, he chuckled silently. 


End file.
